


Faith And Hope, Take Note

by brutumfulmen



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Love Conquers All, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Pre-Fall (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:20:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23309788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutumfulmen/pseuds/brutumfulmen
Summary: Crowley forged the stars, yes.And he alone remembers the reason he came to love them so.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 58
Kudos: 170
Collections: Bittersweet Good Omens





	Faith And Hope, Take Note

Of course right when he finally gets used to the whole no limbs deal he’d get them back. 

He shook the new-again additions out, stretched the dense, serpentine-strong muscle wrapped around long bones, and adjusted his robes with a grimace. Dark wings fanned out behind him, but he could not be bothered to summon the other four and check those too. His calves and temples itched thinking about it.

Alright for a corporeal form though, he begrudgingly conceded as he smoothed a hand down his long hair. Nice touch, the red.

She must have finally gotten Herself a sense of humour.

Down below the First Children walked into exile and the new world made just for them, hands interlaced to not lose one another. Eve moved closer to Adam, and before they were hidden by the dunes lining the horizon, Adam brought their hands up to lay an adoring kiss across Eve’s knuckles.

 _Now isn’t that something,_ he thought this side of impressed.

Beside him the angel shifted and gave a not-too-subtle side glance at the unexpected company on this part of Eden’s wall. As he had so very long ago, the angel stood with that flutter of nervous energy he’d grown to adore somewhere in the time it took to breathe the Pillars of Creation into existence and spur Betelgeuse into motion. His heart, the mortal, blood-pumping one in his chest, began to beat as a hammer might inspire metal to sing.

“Well, that went down like a lead balloon,” he said without anything left to lose.

Aziraphale, soft and pale under the harsh desert sun, at last turned to him. Blue eyes the colour of Earth’s limitless sky caught his and—

“Sorry, what was that?”

A sigh filled the air between them from the hollow of a chest far colder than it used to be.

Right then.

“I said, that went down like a lead balloon.”

Clang. Clang. Clang.

_CLANG._

He swung the hammer in that four-count rhythm with an impatience borne of countless failures. Harsher than warranted, his tongs turned the amorphous heat on the anvil and repeated the count until molten light smouldered in a perfect, glimmering orb. Dissatisfaction rumbled through him as he plucked it to hold into the light of the brightest star currently in this part of the universe. He had moved his smithy here under the idea it would inspire better forging, only to find it merely a better light to shine on the sub-par work he’s done.

In hand the freshly made core flickered with hesitancy. This one might not have a long life even if he hammered it into a star, he considered, turning it every which angle as its imperfections radiated under a critical eye. Annoyance marred his thoughts the longer he stared, unsure how to improve upon it.

For a brief moment, the core burst with a desperate gasp of light much to his hope, then faded.

Terrible, once again.

“Pathetic!” He snarled and the molten core trembled as around him the smithy shifted uneasily from his rising anger. On a string of sharp curses from languages not yet spoken he made to flatten the failed star into dust when a flicker of light out the corner of one of his eyes stilled his hand.

A faint bit of ethereal, almost lost amidst the astronomical pinpricks of starlight he’s long since filtered out.

An angel has arrived.

“Hello,” he called out plainly, rolling the molten core between translucent fingers. His wheel of narrowed eyes began to tick between his crown wings as they all continued to inspect the object of his ire while keeping the little angel in his view, having spared only a singular eye for the endeavour.

What was an angel doing so far out here, anyways? Usually if She had something to say to him She just showed up.

Always a fun time that was.

“Ah yes, hello,” said the little angel, fluttering and soft, dimmed ever so slightly as he seemed to look around. A mere flicker of light in the expanse of a seraph’s realm.

“Forgive me, I seem to be lost.”

Lost, he said. Now that was a new one, but the sooner he can send the wayward angel off the better. He was alone out here for reasons he did not want interrupted. Notably, he did not like other angels, and they did not like him.

Once this angel realised who he’d stumbled upon, the reaction would be the same.

“Yes. You are.” He set the hammer down on the anvil and tossed the core into his chest to be super-heated where it will become something different by the time he pulled it back out if it knew what’s good for it.

Easily half a million years gone to waste.

The little angel shifted under his now undivided scrutiny, and through his many golden eyes it was clear how nervous he was. Perhaps he has not been around seraphim before, or at least not ones quite like him. Several angels have in the past - as the kindest thing they’ve to say about him - said that the wheel of a thousand eyes was a bit _much_. As if the lack of a head and the massive, endlessly blazing furnace within his chest were everyday characteristics for other angels.

Not his fault he had limbs and they only had faces, he silently countered with some feeling as the molten core melted. Too many mouths. All of them talking and none of it worth listening to.

“Who’re you looking for?” He changed course from his irate thoughts to implore the little angel.

“I… I am not entirely sure.” A concept known as fretting was invented right there, though neither of them knew it. Mattered not when he saw right through the response.

The little angel had not been looking for anyone, no doubt. Probably only recently created and had grabbed the first chance to get away from Heaven in his curiosity to find out what lay beyond the white walls of their home.

Bold, he’ll give the little angel that. If he were one to laugh he would. Either way, it was the first company since She stopped by a little while ago - or was it eternities ago - for their routine chat. Before that some of the Dominions visited to help relocate his smithy and he was not sure who else since, didn’t care to remember.

He has time. It’s brand new, after all.

“So what’s your name, angel?”

“Oh, forgive me,” the little angel flickered and bobbed quite like a quark. “I am the principality called Aziraphale.”

“Of Raphael,” he mused as he brushed some of the stardust from his anvil, mindful to avoid the small angel by using the wings on his calves to send the dust out into space.

“You’re under their cadre. Healers and nurturers, correct?”

Aziraphale gave the impression he nodded. Those small wings bloomed a soft yellow then back to white, somehow as bright as the star in the centre of his smithy. All his eyes blinked at the sight before they reluctantly continued on with their slow rotation.

What were they talking about again?

“Yes,” Aziraphale’s gentle voice provided, “they made us principalities for this new world the Almighty plans to create. Earth, I hear it is to be called.”

Earth. Right, that place. He has a project for that place in the distant future. Although, if anyone asked Her he’s _very_ far behind on it. Desperate to avoid that looming deadline, he straightened up to gesture with a crown wing for the principality to come closer. To his surprise Aziraphale flitted up without hesitation to settle beside his shoulder, although he bobbed out of the way as the massive wheel of eyes tilted back up to face Her universe from all sides.

“Fascinating don’t you think?” He cast a dust-covered hand out to the great expanse where his countless creations reside and watched how Aziraphale brightened. “I’ve created all these to adorn the Earth’s night sky for Her Children. One day, they’ll even explore them.”

“All the way out here?” Aziraphale gasped. “But surely they might be lonely!”

He sighed. Johiel said roughly the same thing last time he suggested such.

With great effort he flicked open the furnace, letting the grate swing on its worn hinges to the principality’s vocal alarm. Ignoring the affronted sound, he pulled out the core where it burst with iridescence as opposed to its former modest red.

Now that's interesting.

A golden eye focused on Aziraphale, floating patient and curious, as he set it back on the anvil with more force than necessary.

No one has ever stayed to watch him forge a star.

With that thought pinging hot through his chest, he raised towards whichever way could be called up, and brought the hammer down.

At his shoulder Aziraphale fluttered from the force whipping about but stayed close and against his better judgment he cherished the clang of his hammer upon molten starlight. It rang out endlessly into the universe, all with someone else to hear it for the first time.

 _Aziraphale,_ he turned the name over in his mind.

_It’s good to meet you._

When he slowly lifted away a new star gleamed up at him, vastly different than any he’s created thus far. Carefully he held it up, turning every which way between his fingers to catch the star’s iridescence in full bloom. Swirling white and golden and streaked with the purest blue, it begged to illuminate a prominent part of the sky.

He glanced over to the principality. Flickering, soft Aziraphale.

“Not if they go together.”

“My dear what do you think of these?”

Crowley glanced up from his mobile’s blinking screen at the gentle lilt of Aziraphale’s voice. Around them the shop’s other patrons milled about as Aziraphale held in hand two tablecloths of minutely varied blue-tones, a searching brightness to his eyes.

“Looks great. Pick one and we can cross it off the list,” he replied and before his focus dropped back to the argument he’s fuelled in a classic car forum for the past half hour, Crowley heard a pointed sigh from the angel. Aziraphale returned the tablecloths to their designated shelves and a careful frown worried its way across his mouth, which absolutely would not do.

Especially since they’ve been here for an hour already.

“Angel?”

“Well,” Aziraphale tapped his fingers across the shelf of what appeared to be numerous vegetable chopping contraptions. “I am aware this is not your idea of a fun time, but if you provided _some_ input then perhaps…”

Crowley pushed off their half-filled trolley and stepped closer until he could lean down to press a kiss along the soft crown of Aziraphale’s hair. At the contented noise Aziraphale made, he dipped lower to sink one over his temple.

“Anywhere with you is a fun time,” said Crowley, following the words with another kiss. “You’ve a lot of particulars, though. Figured I’d just let you pick whatever you want for the house.”

Aziraphale shifted and hummed low in his throat as he thought after his next words. Suppressing a sigh Crowley pocketed his mobile to slink an arm around the angel’s soft waist, aware he need settle in for a while.

“I understand that, but it is supposed to be your home as well.” Aziraphale glanced up quickly before looking back down as a sudden pallor marred his face. “Unless, of course you—”

“Angel.”

Crowley brought his hand up from Aziraphale’s waist to cradle his cheek, halting the angel’s words. Dipping his chin he peeked over his dark sunglasses down into those blue eyes.

Every so often, and with increasing frequency the closer they get to move-in day, Aziraphale’s self-doubt reared its head with distressing effects. It mattered not that Crowley’s name was on the deed to the house, that he handled the entire closing with the realtors considering Aziraphale still lived sometime before legal tender was exchanged for goods and services. Whenever it struck, such as now, Aziraphale assumed Crowley to already be halfway out the door before they even had the keys in hand.

Yes, Crowley enjoyed independence, but nowadays an empty velvet box waiting for the right ring lurked in the Bentley’s glove compartment that spoke otherwise.

“I’ll be happy with anything you pick. All I care about is coming home to you.”

“Oh, oh my,” Aziraphale breathed, successfully wooed in this busy home goods store. His eyes glimmered up at Crowley as he leaned into the curve of his hand, a moment of peace between them.

“I did see a lovely tartan pattern in the other aisle, if you would be so kind.”

Crowley scowled at Aziraphale’s shyly earnest smile but pulled away, the request heard.

“‘Course. Be right back.”

A glimmer of light flickered in the distance. This time he knew who braved the expanse of space, even as his focus remained on the workings atop his anvil.

When the hammer came down harder than usual, it was surely on purpose.

“Lost again are you?” He asked, not looking up as he willed one of the many parts of this planned nebula into existence. A plume of dust and heat kicked up by his crown wings and spun into the molten he’s glared at since plucking it from his chest.

Another piece for him to be unsatisfied with, so goes the narrative for the past eternity.

“Have you figured out who I am yet?”

“Yes, when I returned they told me who I had come across,” Aziraphale replied as if his words were carried upon the motes of dust cast around them, the bloom of light that made up his eternal spirit punctuated with muted yellows. “Said you were out here alone of your own accord. That…”

Aziraphale trailed off, letting the words suspend. If he bothered to look with one of his eyes, with any of them, no doubt they’d catch how discomfort radiated from the principality in waves.

“What they told you was right,” he grunted, cranking the vice tight as he pulled a saw from alongside his hip to slice the molten metal into exacting pieces. Pillars, he decided on a sliver of inspiration. “Not interested in angelic company, work-related or otherwise. Thanks for the encore but you best get back to the others.”

“Yes. The others,” Aziraphale fluttered, a shuffle forward then back as though he wanted to come up to the anvil but resisted. “Well, I understand you are not interested in ah, angelic company - all for very good reasons I am sure. Perhaps if, if it is not too much trouble, though...”

At the near blinding light Aziraphale seemed to give off without knowing it he stopped his work, able to only stare.

“Might you give mine a chance?”

“All set, angel?”

Aziraphale gave a near inaudible sigh as he looked up at the bookshop, its ancient key worried in hand. The windows were shuttered while its door remained tightly shut with an artfully written _‘Closed Until Further Notice’_ hanging behind the glass pane. Shaking his head, Aziraphale pocketed the key and made his way to the Bentley where Crowley loaded the rest of Aziraphale’s chosen items that he refused to risk sending in the moving truck.

“It’s not like you’re selling the place,” Crowley offered the quiet angel as he closed the Bentley’s boot upon placing the last bit of luggage inside.

An indignant huff came from Aziraphale as he buckled himself in, but his eyes strayed back to the bookshop as Crowley threw himself into the driver’s side and waited. Aware the Bentley has been crowding the busy sidewalk for the past few hours, he did not turn over the engine yet, understanding better than most the sacrifice Aziraphale made for them both.

How hard it can be for someone to move on from everything they built. Crowley cleared his throat against the odd tension there.

“We can always come back. Make sure it’s still standing,” said Crowley.

“Oh Crowley, please do not joke,” Aziraphale replied, a touch strained.

“I’m not.”

Aziraphale whipped around at the grave tone Crowley did not mean to speak in, his eyes wide. After quickly touching a hand to his sunglasses to make sure they were on Crowley busied himself with the keys and the Bentley faithfully turned over, rumbling with life. A plump, smooth hand came to settle in his, and Crowley shifted so their fingers entwined. One of the many adjustments they make every day for one another.

“We can always come back, you say,” Aziraphale asked quietly, and the layers in his words pulled Crowley’s gaze to his once more.

“Yeah. Whenever you want.”

Aziraphale looked down at how Crowley’s thumb stroked along his hand, then back up, a tremble visible in his lips.

“I - that is, would you come with me?”

“As if I’d let anyone else drive you,” rasped Crowley, and despite London’s foggy grey skies Aziraphale seemed caught in sunlight with how bright his eyes shined.

Gabriel came to visit during an interesting time as he worked on star after star upon a rare influx of inspiration. While unusual to see Gabriel away from Her side for once he did not complain, even though he typically put up a rile about the intrusion for the sake of appearances.

Besides, the Messenger of God was one of the few angels who liked the long, scenic journey out here that came with light-years of flight through the abyssal expanse.

“Something’s brewing back in Heaven.” Gabriel stretched his arms out in front of his newly minted corporeal chest, long grey robes fluttered about his ankles as he settled atop one of the many other tools going unused currently. He had to squint in order to see Gabriel all the way down there, so small these human forms were.

“She’s having me fly all over the place with messages to the other high ranks,” continued Gabriel, tugging a stray feather from a wing and with a gust of breath let it float into space. “Not like I’m an Archangel in my own right or anything.”

He refrained from teasing as he set a stray piece in the vice for later work. He only lasted a minute.

“Guardian angel Gabriel _does_ have a nice ring to it.”

“Don’t start!” Laughter rang from the back of the Archangel’s throat louder than rebuke, however. “I can’t bear to see myself always stuck in Heaven at some desk, unable to run messages. Fly. I’ll never get used to this body if I can’t actually use it.”

Turn of the rock in white-hot tongs, followed by a careful tap with the pein side of the hammer. 

“What’s a desk?”

Gabriel hummed thoughtfully as he flicked his left side’s wings to bat away a cloud of dust. “I don’t have the slightest clue. A Virtue suggested the creation of one the other day. Sounded ominous.”

Indeed. “So, what’s all the messages been about?”

“Something something highly sensitive work something. I don’t ask.”

“Hence the incoming demotion. Really though. You should ask occasionally,” he countered before rotating the massive rock on his anvil, scrutinising this side of the dull, pock-marked creation. “Especially if it has all the Archangels and Seraphim mobilised.”

“Doesn’t have you up and about.” Gabriel never let him have the last word. Never.

“Last time I was there Lucifer and the others made it clear my strengths were better suited out this way.” Lucifer said a lot of _other_ things, too. Dangerous, interesting things he tried not to let fester in his mind. Even as they crept through each of his thoughts all the same.

“Seriously? When have you ever listened to the likes of—”

Another clang and before he knew what happened his hammer came down much harder than expected. He hissed as the asteroid shattered into a hundred pieces and somewhere to his right the Archangel whistled low in sympathy.

“You know,” Gabriel began, recognising a need to change topics and pushed off into space. His six wings, sleek and built for speed glittered in the flames of the forge as a curious distraction.

A comet should bear Gabriel’s name, someday, he idly considered.

“Johiel was going on again about how you believe humanity will explore the stars. Thinks it’s an insult to the Almighty.”

Maybe.

The hammer sounded out as he laboured over the particularly complex asteroid belt, working to salvage the scattered pieces. Aziraphale mentioned on his last visit he liked how the idle debris floated out in space together as if a great big family. Plus, it’s not as if he had anything better to do.

He did, but.

“They’re still complaining about that? Acting like I suggested they live underground. Or in a volcano.” Aziraphale told him about volcanoes during his last visit. He liked the idea of all that heat on Earth similar to his stars, but Aziraphale found them too warm apparently and did not want to be anywhere near them. Sensitive creature Aziraphale was.

Another swing, gentler this time.

Gabriel hummed in thought before he flew over in an awkward, stumbling flight. The Archangel clearly struggled with his new human body, a task he personally planned to put off for as long as possible. None of it sounded appealing, he thought with bemusement as the normally graceful Archangel nearly floated away in a cosmic wind until he stretched his much larger crown wing out to catch him.

Human hands were far too small for crafting stars or swinging the hammer he made from his own marrow, and where exactly does he fit his eyes so he might see all directions into space?

Thanks, but no.

“Why limit them to one place when there’s all this out here?” Gabriel asked from his perch on the relaxed crown wing while waving a hand about through the thick clouds of multi-coloured stardust.

“Traveling and going as far as they can. Personally, I like the idea!”

He turned an eye towards Gabriel as he let out a laugh, the grate of his furnace rattling with the force of it. Of course Gabriel would.

Maybe he will get that comet.

“We should get something going with Johiel. Whether or not Her Children ever reach the stars.”

The Archangel clapped his hands together as he smiled, wide and cheerful.

“I look forward to us winning that particular battle.”

“Do you know which room you want?” Crowley called as he set the last of the boxes down in the sitting room, brushing the dust off his hands with a quick swipe down his trousers.

Upon arrival Aziraphale had immediately relegated himself to the large, painfully modern kitchen after deciding without words that Crowley was better suited for the cumbersome task of arranging their heaviest furniture. His own skills, it was implied, were for more discretionary work. Such as everything that did not require manual labour of any sort, but Crowley assumed this meant Aziraphale could not complain with how he’s arranged the house so far.

Although, he has heard the angel pointedly tut several times while in the kitchen.

“Ah, just a moment my dear.” There was a bustling and closing of a cabinet door, no doubt the angel found the kettle and planned to make himself a pot of tea. A brief hesitation filled the air suddenly, and wafted from the kitchen into the sitting room, obvious enough that Crowley paused to see what might have happened as the minutes stretched on.

“Aziraphale?”

To Crowley’s surprise Aziraphale emerged with his hands full of only nervous fret, not a teacup in sight.

“What was that?” Aziraphale asked, his focus cast about the sitting room while not taking in any of the hard work Crowley’s done. With a grunt Crowley pushed the settee underneath the wide double windows straddled by Aziraphale’s already filled bookcases.

“Asked if you knew what room upstairs you wanted,” he said as he yanked a battered box off the coffee table and kicked it to the side. It was his stuff so not like Aziraphale’s affronted gasp behind him was warranted.

“Ah, right of course. Well what do you mean, er, exactly?”

“Bedroom, angel.” Crowley bit his tongue against the twinge of annoyance threatening their first day in this new home. Not the best way to start things off by snapping at the already frayed, out of sorts angel. “I know you aren’t fond of sleep. Figure you can always turn it into some sort of study.”

Aziraphale shuffled, the wooden floors creaked ever so slightly from the motion.

“We already have a study,” he replied in a faraway tone, almost a whisper. Crowley grit his teeth, tearing the last of the wrap off the coffee table’s narrow legs with enough force they almost snapped.

“Another one then, I don’t know. It’s your bedroom. Room.”

“I…”

Crowley should not have paused. He should have continued on unpacking as if he did not hear the angel’s noise of distress, let them live in ignorance despite how this very question has burned a trail underneath their steps these past six thousand years.

_Where will you rest your head?_

As he, against everything within him, turned to look at Aziraphale, those open blue eyes already waited to meet his gaze. Silence reigned save for the deep intake of breath Aziraphale made, reminding Crowley he also has not breathed in several minutes.

“I was rather hoping.” Crowley shivered at the hesitancy-laden lilt in those quiet words. In slow motion he watched how Aziraphale’s hands clasped in front of his chest not unlike a shield as the most beautiful flush bloomed across his soft, hopeful face.

_Please, please let it be next to mine._

“That we need only the one.”

He stared.

“What do you think?” Aziraphale asked as a voice pitched a little higher rang out in the smithy and through his molten heart. Pale hands, mortal and plump, wrung long white robes that fluttered about his ankles. Aziraphale was far shorter than Gabriel’s corporeal form, rounder and less defined, like a cosmic dust cloud.

He’s never seen anything so _soft_.

“It, it is standard now for all of us. To have one of these.”

More hand-wringing. He still stared; all thousand eyes focused on Aziraphale. A potential star in his chest spun off its axis to ping about like one might visualise a super-heated atom doing. Most unbecoming of a seraph at his level, but he was never any good at his job.

“Well, that is, those of us that will be on Earth. With the humans, you know.” Aziraphale bit his lip and—

That was interesting.

“Might you say something?” Aziraphale huffed, the motion raising and lowering his plush chest which filled out underneath those fluttering robes in so lovely a way he could not rein himself in any longer. He reached over, painfully aware of how massive his hands were, as a single finger hovered over the white-gold crown of the angel’s head, humbled by so delicate a reflection of Aziraphale.

“You’re like starlight incarnate.”

Pink gleamed across Aziraphale’s face as his translucent hand retreated, and the corners of the angel’s mouth twitched upwards into an embarrassed smile. Never, in the eternity he’s existed, has he longed for anything else than to see such happiness always there. He wondered if that smile was because of what he said, and the furnace in his chest swirled molten with the possibility.

“They say that we should get acclimated to these bodies with something called touching. Humans will be doing a lot of it, apparently,” Aziraphale continued after a flustered moment as he went back to wringing his robes, eyes glancing about his perch on the anvil. “If we principalities are to blend in we are expected to reciprocate, or at least not recoil. Seems needlessly complicated, truth be told.”

He was aware at that moment how little this angel knew about it all. His privilege as a seraph on full display from that exclusive peek into humanity and all they could become, when the Archangels and seraphim bore witness as She forged humanity’s soul from Her own image.

There was a lot of touching humans were going to be doing, and for reasons Aziraphale did not grasp yet.

“Are you going to?” Aziraphale looked up at the question, that soft pink fading to his internal dismay, but he clarified himself.

“Practice touching.”

“Ah that is, I am not particularly well received by the other angels.” An immense force of will slowed the wheel of his eyes as it threatened to speed up at the faint dejection in Aziraphale’s voice.

“Instead, I was rather hoping…” He watched the pale column of Aziraphale’s neck bob with a swallow. If he had one, would it have done the same thing? There was a peculiar sensation building right in the expanse between his shoulders and his wheel of eyes, growing more intense the longer Aziraphale shifted about in his corporeal form. Somehow, a vice had set itself there, clasped around nothing but still it gripped him.

“Won’t be back in Heaven for a while,” he began slowly, unsure if this is what Aziraphale meant. Hoped he was not wrong.

“But if you’re willing to wait until I get mine I’ll show you everything.”

Well, not _everything._ Unless of course Aziraphale wanted that with him, but he suppressed thinking about that right now. Before he might yank back his bold words Aziraphale looked up, eyes wide and the colour of.

Of.

Not sure, but they soothed every burning, aching part of his being when they flickered across him as though he were worth beholding.

_Aziraphale, does what you see in me please you?_

“Oh, well, I certainly do not mind waiting,” Aziraphale replied as a smile curved across his face, this one for certain put them there by him. It had to be.

“Quite sure you would do the same for me.”

_You have no idea, angel._

Aziraphale stood before Crowley in the centre of the night-draped bedroom, eyes cast about and unsure where to look. His hands wrung the hem of his waistcoat, catching the fine sheen of fabric in the moonlight as it pooled in through the windows. Thumbs smoothed along their worry lines, a faded path Crowley has watched the angel’s nerves lead him on so many times before, all to places far from Crowley’s reach.

When he took a step forward before Aziraphale slipped away, two shaking hands reached for him in a silent request to be held.

A slow breath, his mouth suddenly dry.

“You alright?”

Aziraphale bit his lip, eyes almost sad while Crowley’s thumbs rubbed gentle stripes over Aziraphale’s delicate skin.

Soft, as he always believed it would be. He shook the thought away.

“Yes, my dear. I - I am quite new to this, that is all.” Crowley’s heart ached, bruised its hard rhythm against the inside of his chest.

“I know I must have made you wait so long for me to be ready but,” Aziraphale rushed out as his fingers plucked at the dark fabric of Crowley’s shirt. “Only I hope it makes up that, well, in this way I waited for you, too.”

Crowley squeezed his eyes shut, forced air into his lungs to keep himself from gasping in agony or perhaps even sob. Drop to his knees and beg after a forgiveness Aziraphale had every right to deny for what he’s done.

How long Aziraphale has gone without, all because of him.

“Nothing to make up for, angel,” Crowley rasped and wrapped his arms tight around Aziraphale. Gently, as he once might have cradled a star into its place on one of the Milky Way’s spiralling bands, and he sighed as the angel buried his soft face into the hard planes of a heart-hammered chest. Together, in a silence not needing to be filled, they stood at the foot of their bed while night fell around them.

Their bed. Their side. Theirs. Never did he think that word would be his to say.

“But thank you.”

“Are you happy out here?”

A pause. He set down the hammer before tossing the star back into his chest and shutting the grate shut. Aziraphale, small and delicate and perfectly imperfect, sat on an unlit comet that has been in the works for about three million years as he cannot find the will to send it off into space yet.

Perhaps this is the one that’ll bear Gabriel’s name. A terrible fate indeed, he almost chuckled to himself.

“Happy?”

Aziraphale wrung at his robes as those delicate wings wafted flecks of stardust around them. “Well, are you happy being so far from the others, alone?”

As he thought on Aziraphale’s question, he reached out to hover a stardust covered finger above the crown of this human-mirrored angel who captivated him so.

“Can’t be alone if you’re here.”

How bright Aziraphale’s laughter was as his Grace glowed under the surface of his mortal skin. All at once he struggled not to take Aziraphale in his hands and bring him close to the furnace of his chest. Were Aziraphale to grant him the chance, surely his blacksmith-steady hands would tremble with what lay between them. He forced himself to pluck the star from his chest and swung the hammer down with all the hasty motion of an amateur and not his eternities of expertise. Around them sparks and dust filled the space, though he took care to shield Aziraphale as it rained down upon them. Once the dust cleared Aziraphale gave a soft noise of surprise, and he scooped the resulting star up to bring closer for the smaller angel’s examination.

“What do you think? To fill this section of the universe?” Instead of Aziraphale the star gleamed bright between his hands as though in offering. Something along its surface rippled, unusual and curious, as he waited for Aziraphale’s response.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said and flew closer, easily dwarfed by the star as it spun molten white. “How lovely! But surely they will be lonely, all the way out here?”

They?

With a careful, surprised blink of his eyes he saw in hand not one but two, so close they were indeed. He looked over to Aziraphale, cast luminous in the binary stars’ light.

All he could behold.

“Not if they go together.”

Aziraphale sighed out what could have been Crowley’s name, and he let it fill his lungs until he went lightheaded.

Anywhere his hands could reach they pressed against Aziraphale, finding a new favourite place each time they landed. To cradle his cheeks as they kissed, down in slow winding trails around sloped shoulders and a plush middle where he began to peel away the layers separating them. First the hem of his well-worn waistcoat before Crowley plucked the cold metal of a brass button at the top of his pale trousers. All of it would soon be crumpled in an irredeemable pile on the floor and no doubt he will be scolded in the morning, but for now it was a price worth paying.

As the last of Aziraphale’s clothing fell away to leave him bare to Crowley’s view Aziraphale tensed up, halting their slow discovery of one another. Crowley pulled back enough to watch a complex shift in emotions flicker across the angel’s soft face. His eyes went to the open curtains as moonlight spilled through, and quietly snapped his fingers to plunge them into darkness.

Crowley dipped down, smiling against Aziraphale’s lips, then raised a hand to snap them back open.

Aziraphale grabbed his hand and before he could ask anything a tremor ran through Aziraphale followed by the slightest hitch in his breathing. Those soft lips quivered against Crowley’s, trying to explain without words everything Aziraphale never knew how to say.

With more gentleness than a demon should wield, he brought the hand from Aziraphale’s grip up to cradle his downcast face.

“Never hide yourself,” Crowley breathed, lips still touched to that mouth now damp with fallen tears.

“Not from me.”

In the eternity between their heartbeats Aziraphale’s trembling ever so gradually subsided, until he nodded into the crook of Crowley’s shoulder and made his sanctuary there. With Aziraphale held close Crowley raised his hand one more time.

Laid naked in the centre of the bed, caught aglow in the moonlight, Aziraphale looked, he _looked_ —

“Angel.” Aziraphale’s eyes, wet and fragile, opened at Crowley’s voice and he pressed a kiss under each to catch the droplets which clung to his apple-round cheeks.

There was so much to make up for, he did not know where to start.

Crowley mouthed the urgency of his roiling emotions into the divot of Aziraphale’s neck, his lust over the soft plushness of Aziraphale’s chest, his awe along the gentle curve of Aziraphale’s belly. Patient, as he has been for six thousand years and beyond, Crowley carried reassurance within every touch of his mouth and hands until Aziraphale thought nothing of his self-doubt and only of the demon who adored him.

“Dear,” Aziraphale murmured against the hard planes of Crowley’s chest as slicked fingers eventually dipped between his parted thighs, chasing the name with a choked gasp as Crowley sunk them deep.

He’s never worshipped anything like he will Aziraphale, gritting his teeth as he tried so hard to do right by him. Crowley knew how to do this and do it well, his practiced hands once forged Heaven’s stars and tempted Earth’s flesh, all in countless quantities.

Both, in a fitting cosmic way, were jobs until they’d involved Aziraphale.

“Ah, please.” Aziraphale arched into the precise attentions of Crowley’s fingers, short nails dug through the hard muscle of his broad shoulders as he coaxed the angel’s body into yielding, stretching and then softening. Within that plea lay a multitude of requests, and Crowley planned to fulfil them all.

“Anything you want, angel.”

The long line of Crowley’s body slipped between Aziraphale’s parted, trembling thighs, pressing kiss after kiss to lips that seemed capable of saying only his name in an increasingly breathless manner.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed as Crowley’s cock replaced fingertips, the sheen of sweat across Aziraphale’s pale skin gleamed like the molten surface of a star he’s forgotten the name to.

“It’s alright. I’m right here.”

_I never should have made you wait so long._

Crowley held Aziraphale tight to him as he pressed slowly inside, nearly biting clean through his tongue at the broken cry pulled from the angel as his soft body opened for Crowley to sink further within.

“Aziraphale,” he choked out as Aziraphale gave little hitches of breath the further Crowley thrust in, until tender warmth was all that could be felt. His eyes bled golden down at Aziraphale, their corners burned so he squeezed them shut and let sensation guide him as Aziraphale tensed and relaxed in a rhythmic tremble. As he had for eternity Crowley waited for Aziraphale, his ever-hesitant love, to adjust to the place Crowley made for himself inside his body.

“Why does it feel like,” Aziraphale gasped as Crowley leaned forward to cradle him closer, worshipping kisses into his hair. “Like I am just now catching up?”

Crowley could not speak when Aziraphale moaned into the air between them as he shifted to settle deeper, desperate to never miss a second of this.

“Take your time, there’s no rush. I’d never leave you behind,” he whispered after the moment stretched on and his heart thundered between them against Aziraphale’s own in a matching beat they’ve shared for millennia. Nodding, Aziraphale’s eyes shut as tears slipped down onto the pillow, dampening the satin. Slow, gentle thrusts, and Crowley sighed into the kiss he settled on Aziraphale’s forehead.

“How’s this?” He ran his thumb along the damp curve of Aziraphale’s cheek and in turn those soft arms clung to the once sacred ground of his seraphic wings’ roots with all their might. Oh, angel.

“Why was I so afraid? I could have had this with you so many times over,” the break in Aziraphale’s voice took Crowley’s heart with it.

“Shh,” he hissed, trying to soothe around the long line of his serpent tongue as he encouraged Aziraphale’s legs a bit higher around his driving hips. “None of that. Life with you has never been a waste.”

Spread open underneath Crowley as they moved, Aziraphale’s responding cries pitching higher, louder into the stillness of the night around them. Crowley gave everything he had to Aziraphale, guided by each gasp and moan from him the harder he thrust in and out of the hot, slick clutch of Aziraphale’s body.

“I love you,” Crowley whispered, unable to stop himself when Aziraphale began to shudder in his embrace, as molten heat built along the column of his spine to ignite his space-frozen heart.

Demons don’t love, but for Aziraphale he’s done the impossible before and—

“You’re all I want. All I’ve ever longed for.”

“I love you, too,” Aziraphale sobbed, tears sparkling down his face like fallen stars, “I always have. Crowley, oh, I—!”

One final thrust was all it took and Aziraphale arched with Crowley’s name on his lips as he came wetly between their effort-damp bodies. Enraptured by the sight of Aziraphale’s overwhelmed pleasure as it flickered across his face Crowley lasted hardly a moment longer, knew he did not even want to. Sinking all the way in, Crowley fell over the edge with Aziraphale, burying his rasping breaths into Aziraphale’s soft hair. Dampness streaked down his face as he gasped out a silent thanks. It seemed all he could do as of late.

_Aziraphale, thank you for waiting for me._

He was here now, he hoped it was enough.

For the first time in a long while, he was alone.

Nowadays Aziraphale came by constantly to visit, a routine so well established he wound his wheel of eyes to it, set aside the nicer stars to show him. How the angel managed to traverse such a long distance despite his lower ranking eluded every deduction he’d create, ultimately deciding it mattered not so long as Aziraphale kept coming around.

Except Aziraphale was late.

“Well then,” he spoke aloud, unaware of how his stars no longer shivered at the sound of his voice and cast his focus around the smithy. Scattered throughout, finished stars gleamed at him in a kaleidoscope of colours and sizes, some primed to warm a life-bearing solar system and others to light a future voyager’s journey. After eternities of disappointment, each a prize worthy of Her universe.

Heaven sent him a memo sometime last millennia praising his work, and no doubt an immense grinding of feathers was had from some of his dissenters over the news. He cared nothing for their petty words now that his work has taken on a reflection of his imagination never seen before.

In the silence of his smithy, he sat there. Out in space countless pinpricks of light winked back from a universe fuller, richer thanks to him.

So when did all become not enough?

Grumbling, he plucked a potential star from his chest of the many now pinging about there as opposed to the earlier days where he struggled to forge even one and looked at it closely, as though he held something precious. For the first time in his existence, he brought his crown wings around to cradle it, and decided it was indeed.

 _I made you._ How humbling a truth, he closed his eyes as it settled over him.

“Apologies, apologies! Raphael called us all for an impromptu meeting. I’m ah, here now, though.”

In his hands the star went supernova as he looked up.

“Welcome back, Aziraphale.”

Time went on.

No longer as new as it first was after the end that did not truly end, after they bedded down into this quiet life of theirs. When the future stretched forward in some unknown capacity, perhaps six thousand years was a mere blink, and these perfect months together were not even the beginning of opening one’s eyes for another.

Very good indeed that Crowley did not blink.

A droplet of water landed on his nose and scattered along with his thoughts. Grimacing, he saw the greenhouse roof had sprung another leak. All this rain the past few days delivered plenty of nourishment for his outdoors plants while it ruined he and Aziraphale's summer plans. Time indoors with the angel has allowed his imagination to conjure up other ways to entertain them both, Crowley conceded idly as he set the sheers aside to glower at the frightened, freshly pruned plant.

In fact, his lips curved as he thought on the matter despite the trembling plant in his grip, right about now Aziraphale was probably more than willing to—

“Crowley?”

At the sound of Aziraphale’s voice filtering in from the outdoors, Crowley set both the plant and water spritzer down, sparing a last glare across his trembling plants he exited the greenhouse. Aziraphale stood at the glass doors with a miraculously effective umbrella and a frustrated expression on his face at the terrible weather he must endure. Without question, but unable to hide his fond grin, Crowley took the umbrella from Aziraphale so he did not have to stretch too high and Crowley did not have to stoop. Encircling an arm over the angel’s gently sloped shoulders he let Aziraphale lead them to wherever he desired.

“I was upstairs in the bedroom when I heard the most dreadful noise,” Aziraphale began, almost lost under the pouring rain as they walked mindful of Aziraphale’s shoes across the waterlogged grass surrounding their home. On the eastern side of the house Aziraphale pointed high up the brick to where Crowley saw the runoff drainage pipes and gutters overflowing down the side.

“Found your noise, I reckon.” He worked his jaw as Aziraphale hummed low in displeasure.

“How bad is it?”

Crowley let out a low whistle as he eyed the old, broken pipes spraying water from a series of massive cracks. It flooded the ground near the house as opposed to following the pipes into the areas around the property.

“If this weather doesn’t let up soon the runoff can’t drain. We might be looking at some water damage in the sitting room,” Crowley muttered, smoothing a hand down Aziraphale’s back at his distressed noise and he nosed into damp blonde curls to leave an apologetic kiss.

“I hate to use a miracle on something I’m not too familiar with but there’s nothing to be done, I suppose,” Aziraphale sighed and raised a hand to snap.

Crowley’s hand quickly slipped from Aziraphale to close over his fingers, stilling the miracle mid-snap. Eyes locked on the rusted pipes as water burst down the side of their beloved home, he almost felt the blaze of a furnace with its long-forgotten heat flicker to life in his chest.

“Dear?”

“I’ll handle this.”

She came to him during a calm he was unsure truly existed save for right here.

“I need one final star created, my little star-smith,” She said without preamble, Her presence alone a blessing to bask within and he set right to work. Time itself stopped on Her command as they occupied his smithy to craft this last star but it mattered not. All of Heaven was counting on him. The urgency to ensure this star absolutely perfect pressed along his shoulders as he straddled the anvil and worked. Before the final swing of his hammer, he realised he’d failed to ask an important question and paused.

“Anything in particular You want for it?”

She made a thoughtful, melodic sound. His spirit thrummed with gratitude.

“Not red.” Alright then.

As he swung the hammer down, the star gleamed back a perfect, molten red.

No matter, it’s still an easy enough request.

Except each time he pulled the unfinished creation from his chest and hammered it to life it came back red. Made matters worse as She kept pressing an ever-gentle coax of ‘not quite’ into where - he assumed had he a corporeal form - his head would rest.

He swung the hammer. Red again.

What the—?

Seraphic willpower commanded him to remain calm as he sent the star back into his furnace to let it melt once more. Whether he imagined the sensation of Her amusement at the unnecessary slam of the grate, he spun his wheel of eyes fast enough to distract himself while they waited as opposed to confronting his petulance. As he brought a hand up sooner than usual to yank the star from his chest, he took a moment to experience the interaction. This strange experience of touching.

How long has Earth’s sky waited for a star, anyways? Not nearly as long as he and Aziraphale have waited for one another and here he was, held up over this overly picky star.

Red _again._ Back into the furnace.

“You have not been back for your corporeal form,” Her voice projected not rebuke but a patient curiosity.

“Any reason why?”

“I’ve had much to do is all,” he hedged as he set the core upon the anvil for what felt like the hundredth time. “Should You request it, Almighty, I’ll go now.”

“No hurry. This is important to get right.”

She came closer or seemed to with how She moved and altered the space around him. Even though Her presence was as if he’d flown close to the surface of a freshly supernova star, his mind wandered elsewhere as he worked.

What would his corporeal form look like?

Would he stand broad and strong like Gabriel, or soft and gentle like Aziraphale? Somehow neither fit, and he let his thoughts taper off as he watched his form’s long hands, translucent as dark space and pinprick starlight filtered through them. In a steady grip he held the hammer and turned the core upon the anvil, its potential stardom gleaming up at him from the swirling iridescent surface in its eagerness to be born.

It better not be red again.

Anyways back to the topic at hand. Most importantly, Aziraphale’s touch waited for whatever form he arrived with.

Aziraphale, always with kind smiles and fluttering hands whenever he was shown a new star. Aziraphale, as he spoke of the beauty he’d seen from sneaked glances at Earth's plans, a well of knowledge begging to be filled then plundered with all this new world can provide. Aziraphale, told the secret names of these stars he’d laboured over all alone for eternity, asking after each as if he truly cared.

Aziraphale as he was, without anything to offer but himself, and he.

And he.

Primary wings bellowed a cosmic storm powerful enough to send the nearby stars into chaos. He raised the hammer high and with one slow, deep breath, swung down with all his might.

_And he—_

Waves of golden light radiated from the anvil and his essence trembled at the force of the strike, awestruck as a little speck of a star gleamed up from the aftermath. Stardust rained down, scattered over the surfaces of his forge and into passing solar winds to be carried into eternity. Exhausted, and rather overwhelmed, his wheel of eyes shut tight in protest as his crown wings fluttered to brush remnants away.

“Sol.” She whispered as the little star floated up from the anvil to Her limitless hands. “This is to be their light.”

“Sol,” he dumbly repeated.

“It will look wonderful in Earth’s sky, don’t you think so?”

Freshly born, Sol glowed yellow and gentle with an elaborate, arcing corona, a true beacon for the solar system in which Earth reside. Rather than admire his finest work, he imagined it within the limitless skies over Earth warming Aziraphale’s fair skin, illuminating his smile.

Would Aziraphale look up and know he’d made a star just for him?

“You have put a great deal of yourself into this,” She continued, the faintest hint of a smile in Her voice. Surely She’d heard his blasphemous thoughts. Seraphim never squirmed, so he set his hammer down to pluck a loose feather from his primary wing. The atmosphere surrounding the completion of his long-awaited work rang hollow, somehow.

Almost wistful and forlorn, as if to say goodbye.

“It _is_ my final piece,” he said, the expanse between his shoulders and wheel of eyes tight. His hammer weighed heavy in hand as She made an indiscernible noise.

“Worry not. There will always be a place for you, little star-smith,” She soothed as Sol brightened from the cradle of its Mother’s hands.

Reluctantly, he peeked from behind his crown’s wings out to the glittering universe he has dedicated his existence to filling. Laboured eternity upon eternity in this well-worn smithy as he forged new stars, far-cast solar systems, whirling nebulae and so many other things all for Her glory.

“How, when all my work for You has completed?”

No seraphic song in the choirs around Heaven’s throne matched the beauty of Her laughter. Galaxies bowed, cosmic heavens shivered, all with delight as the sound spun his stars faster upon their axes.

And yet.

Aziraphale’s laughter sounded lovelier.

A touch settled to his hands, dust covered and unworthy they were, as She parted his crown wings to reveal him before Her endless light.

“Star-smith, I may have told you to create some excitement up here.”

He looked up, and saw in Her smile that She already knew.

_I love him. I love him more than the stars and Heavenly choirs and even beyond—_

“You alone imagined the rest.”

To say he’d missed this would be an understatement.

Fixing some drainage pipes came easy enough, requiring only a blow torch and the aggressive bending of some metal he purchased from a store down the road. The merchant tried to offer pre-made items but Crowley left before he could be insulted further. Aziraphale, as usual, fretted his obligatory amount over the mess Crowley made of the garage, but once Crowley got to work the complaints miraculously diminished. Replacing gutters and drainage pipes in the middle of a storm was not the best idea he’s ever had, true. The delight on Aziraphale’s face proved worth nearly splitting his head open on that blasted ladder, anyways.

Therefore, as a logical conclusion to all his efforts, instead of cleaning up the garage per Aziraphale’s trailing request Crowley spent the next three days constructing a makeshift smithy. A feat which Aziraphale found him hard at work over this early morning.

“My dear would you happen to oh—”

Dressed in a tartan house robe over an equally ridiculous Victorian nightgown complete with fluffy slippers, Aziraphale stood in the doorway connecting the house to the garage. A high flush lit his soft features as Crowley raised an eyebrow, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of a grime-darkened arm.

Aziraphale cleared his throat delicately, hands wrapped tight around a steaming mug.

“I see you have been - ah, busy,” he said and his eyes darted off to side.

Crowley muttered a curse of effort as he shifted the anvil closer to the forge’s hearth, optimal distance so he could straddle and then heat as needed. On his left-hand side the vice sat gleaming and untouched, not needing this continuous rearrangement the other more particular pieces required. After over an hour of moving the heavy equipment around the cramped garage, Crowley had lost his shirt to sweat and his jeans and heavy boots were permanently ruined, forever condemned to a life here in the garage.

“Yep.” Crowley bent at the knees and braced himself against the anvil to push it another few centimetres, hearing over his laboured grunt a sharp intake of breath from Aziraphale. Tea’s still hot, probably.

“Figured I’d get most of this done early in the morning. Neighbours trying to sleep and all,” he grit through his teeth as he gave another push before standing to stretch out the multiple pops in his back.

“Well, perhaps you might like to come inside for a, a bit?”

Crowley scowled at the rough black soot marks coating his hands and forearms, then down his grimy torso and equally dirty jeans. He’d not be allowed to touch a single part of the house lest Aziraphale’s precious books or knick-knacks find themselves tainted by evidence of physical labour.

A quick respite sounded nice, though. Aziraphale probably wanted him to cook breakfast anyways. It was about that time.

“Sure angel,” he said as he wiped his hands on down his clothed thighs and walked towards Aziraphale. “Let me clean up real quick.”

Aziraphale sucked in a sharp breath as he flushed further, eyes fixated on Crowley’s sweat-slicked chest before they flicked up to meet his confused gaze.

“Maybe later.”

Something terrible had happened while he wasn’t looking.

Aziraphale trembled in the centre of the smithy, unwilling to come closer no matter how much he coaxed. His small wings wrapped around him as though a shield, but he never looked so vulnerable.

“Aziraphale what’s wrong?” Whatever pain he caused he will apologise for and fix.

“They want me to fight,” Aziraphale clutched at the primaries of his wings and tugged them tighter to his body. “I don’t want to! What does it even mean to smite another?”

An unfamiliar chill pierced the endless fires of his furnace until it burned away and he dropped his hammer onto the anvil as he turned to fully face Aziraphale.

“What are you talking about? Why would you even ask such things?”

“You’re a seraph,” Aziraphale pointed up at him, accusation burning in his eyes. “You know, I know you do.”

Although the compulsion roiled through him, he refused to lie to Aziraphale.

“Smiting is,” he began, the vice once again encircling the expanse between his shoulders and wheel of eyes. “An action done with weapons which you obviously don't have so again I’m asking you—”

“Then why has Heaven sent angels out here to forge? Why am I now assigned to some, some platoon?” Aziraphale caught him off guard with that, he’d not known they were sending other smiths back into space.

“I—”

_‘Something’s brewing back in Heaven.’_

He swore in a million different languages. Gabriel warned him about this and he didn’t bother to listen.

“If they will not make Gabriel and his messengers fight they will not make Raphael’s cadre,” he tried to soothe, hands hovering around the angel, unsure where to rest them. For once he wished he had sucked it up and obtained a simple, compact human body so he wouldn’t be too much for Aziraphale.

“They will,” Aziraphale gasped and even as small as it was, a droplet slid down his cheek into the darkness of space. “They will make us and I will have to, to—”

Anything, he’ll do anything not to see Aziraphale cry.

“Listen to me! Nothing will happen,” he hissed, wheel of eyes groaning under colossal pressure as he forced it to remain focused on Aziraphale. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Aziraphale shook his head, red-rimmed eyes shut tight. “That is not a promise even you can make, I fear.”

“Yes it is, Aziraphale.” He rest a fingertip underneath the angel’s chin, a hint of another promise still unfulfiled, and with impossible gentleness in their very first touch he raised Aziraphale’s gaze to his own.

“And it’s one I’ll keep.”

“Oh, oh Crowley just like that,” Aziraphale sighed into the hard planes of Crowley’s chest, mouthing open kisses to every bit of skin within reach. Ever one to oblige, Crowley kept his pace as requested, the slow slide of his cock enough to make them both shudder with bliss.

“Fuck, angel,” Crowley grunted, hands trailing dark marks over Aziraphale’s plush skin as he thrust again and again into the slick, welcoming clutch of Aziraphale.

The bed was a mess and so were they, not that Aziraphale had complained much to Crowley’s surprise. Soot and grime and grease smeared across the pure white sheets as Crowley tumbled them both down into softness with blackened, capable hands. When Crowley draped over Aziraphale and parted his thighs the angel had only shivered, reaching up to run his fingers through dirty, sweat-soaked hair. He’d called Crowley’s name with such desperation Crowley nearly discorporated in his efforts to join them together. Their limbs a tangle Crowley never planned to pull himself from as Aziraphale moaned and writhed underneath him, blue eyes wide as they never left Crowley’s bled golden stare.

It’s never been like this before.

“Crowley, Crowley please.” Aziraphale’s scholar-soft fingers slipped as they tried to grip the scales littered across Crowley’s shoulder blades. From the way his legs trembled around Crowley's hips it was clear he was close, unable to tip over the edge himself. A strong, thin hand slid between them and he bit back a moan at how Aziraphale cried out, working him in short, efficient strokes.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed, awed at the vision of Aziraphale flushed and pleasure-struck. All because of him.

“I love you, I love - love ah,” Aziraphale tensed up, clenching tight around Crowley’s driving thrusts as his climax overtook, hot streaks smearing between their bellies and over Crowley’s hand. Crowley groaned as he loved Aziraphale through his pleasure, unable to stop how the tremble of Aziraphale around him quickly began to melt his lower spine.

“Aziraphale,” he said, already knowing the answer to his question but hearing it spoken aloud made it that much sweeter. “Let me finish inside?”

Aziraphale bit his lip and nodded, flushed as he always was when asked, but his heels dug into the backs of Crowley’s thighs to hold him close. Achingly powerful waves blazed through him and he thrust forward until Aziraphale became all he could feel, everything within his world. He gasped Aziraphale’s name as he came in deep, aching pulses, dimly aware of how the angel shuddered and spilled wetly between them once more.

“Perfect,” Crowley hissed into Aziraphale’s flushed temple, kissing his way down to red-bitten lips where Aziraphale’s breathing still had not calmed, puffing damp against Crowley. No small amount of demonic pride filled his chest at the sight.

“Forgive me, my dear,” Aziraphale panted as Crowley settled them down into their mussed bed, his skin pink and shining with sweat. “Seeing you like that… I’m not quite sure what came over me.”

“Probably has to do more with what came _in_ you.”

Aziraphale turned away with a groan of embarrassment as Crowley grinned, sharp fangs gleaming, before he littered Aziraphale’s red hot face and neck with kisses until the angel shook in delight.

How could he ever long for anything else but this?

“Must you ask me such things?” Aziraphale asked on a bemused sigh as his laughter faded, soft hands resting atop the hard muscle in Crowley's arms. There was a familiar comfort to their affection as they remained joined, present in each open-mouthed kiss and slow caress Crowley lavished upon Aziraphale.

“It’s quite ah, explicit.” Aziraphale continued, a tad breathless at the gentle slide of Crowley out of him, accepting the apologetic kiss pressed to his mouth.

“Given I get two from you whenever I ask, I have plenty of reason to keep on.” A glint lit Crowley’s eyes when Aziraphale huffed, flushing as he looked away. With a stretch behind him Crowley grabbed the damp cloth off the nightstand and made careful work of cleaning Aziraphale of their lovemaking, ending with a kiss above the flutter of his heart.

“I never knew you were into smithing, my dear,” Aziraphale said after a quiet ‘thank you’ upon Crowley returning to his spot next to the angel, hands folded under a soft cheek.

“What else do I not know about you?”

Crowley’s chest ached and he thought of an unfinished ring as he kissed Aziraphale.

“How much I love you.”

“Oh. Is, is that so?” Aziraphale’s eyes glistened, lips twisted against the quiver forming there. Sensitive angel.

“Yeah,” he said before he pressed his forehead to Aziraphale’s and pulled the covers high around them.

“It is.”

An angel has arrived, but it was not Aziraphale this time.

There was no warning as the smithy filled with blinding, painful light. When his eyes recovered enough to see past the now dimming flash the angel of the highest rank and office gleamed before him. An endlessly burning torch rest in one hand as six wings stretched out to blot the glow of the white-dwarf which lit this place he called his own.

“Lucifer.” Unintentional, surely, how his grip on the hammer tightened.

“Good to see you,” the Dawn-bringer smiled in a way that failed to reach his iridescent eyes, all rows of white, sharp teeth like the points of a solar flare. “You’ve missed _quite_ a lot I’m afraid. We have to catch you up, wouldn’t you think?”

“In a bit of a hurry,” he said, eyes tracking how Lucifer floated to set his torch against a decommissioned vice like it was a mere prop he carried.

“You haven’t heard? What’s been going on in Heaven?”

“Not particularly interested,” he hedged, organising his tools into the ether as his thoughts refused to give Lucifer their attention. There was an appointment in Heaven for his new body, he needed to get there before the rush. Aziraphale, frightened and tearful he was during the last time he saw him, has waited far too long for him to fulfil their promise.

Promises, he corrected himself.

“I heard the Almighty came by to see you,” Lucifer continued, his kaleidoscopic wings fluttering wide to almost rival the size of his own, but Lucifer was not one for travel or arduous, lowly work. He’d been created to be God’s favourite, and indeed he was.

“I’m sure you felt honoured by such a visit.”

“Wanted Earth’s star finally made, s’all,” he grunted as he released the final comet out, named at last. “Took it back with Her to plant in their sky.”

A noise he’d never heard Lucifer make before rang from his throat, and he recalled why Lucifer led the choirs of Heaven.

“That’s all She came to see you about?”

“Figure that’s enough.” Words, he’d always struggled with words. Against someone like Lucifer he was no match, tripping over himself like this. “Humans need sunlight, according to what I know.”

“Humans, yes. Those new creatures of Hers signal the end of your work, won’t they.”

His hands stilled as he made to send a winged nebula into a far-flung galaxy, the wheel of his eyes ticked along slowly to take in Lucifer as he approached. Lucifer never said what he meant, but his words left their mark all the same. Always questions about things he’d never considered before but slithered through his mind long after the other angel departed. 

Lucifer, beautiful and worthy, touched a hand to the anvil between them. He pulled away to stare at the stardust and grime now coated along his luminous fingers, then up to catch his eyes.

“You like this... place you muck about in.”

At once he felt inadequate in a painful way he never experienced before, not even in the presence of God. Then again, if Lucifer viewed it as such, what’s to say She didn’t think the same?

He gripped the hammer tight. “I—”

“What if I said you don’t need to close your smithy yet?”

“The Almighty said my work out here was finished.”

“Is it though?”

This was wrong, a warning blared inside his mind. Questions, Lucifer knew how to ask questions that branched into more, and one was wrecking the certainty he’d forged his entire self upon.

_If I lose the smithy what happens to Aziraphale?_

Aziraphale, who he’d promised to protect from Heaven and anything else, who he could protect all the way out here. The most important question to him perhaps, but something dark and tempting told him no, not that question. Must be a trick of the light, how Lucifer’s smile widened as it formed inside his mind.

_Who is She to tell me it needs to close?_

His grip on the hammer slackened.

“I’m listening.”

Crowley woke to the gentle patter of rain tapping its random song atop the metal roof of their home. It was still early, but he shut the heavily embroidered curtains with a look as the first flecks of dawn crept along the pale fabric of Aziraphale’s favourite comforter.

Let the night last a little longer, he told the universe and took its resounding silence for the opportunity it was to wrap his arms tighter around Aziraphale.

Nothing comes free, however. A curious noise rose from Aziraphale’s throat as he stirred, and Crowley watched for a moment how those pale eyelashes fluttered in an attempt to keep sleep within their grasp.

“Rest, angel,” he whispered, a touch of his lips atop that white-blond crown he’s sworn allegiance to for six millennia and so long before.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured in a dream-thick voice as he reached out for Crowley who, with profound fondness, took the hand to press a gentle kiss upon it. “Stay a little longer.”

“Anything you want, starlight incarnate.”

The density within his chest turned cold enough to nearly make him gasp for air as he tried to compress the words. Aziraphale, mercifully, had fallen back to sleep from the warmth and security around him, but it was too late for Crowley to ignore what he’d spoken into existence.

It’s fine, he hissed to himself and the universe which seemed to shudder in reply.

One slip up in all this time, it happens. He’s spent six thousand years keeping everything under wraps, cut him some slack.

It’s fine.

Except.

It really never will be, he realised with a deep sense of loneliness as the rainy morning continued on its way and the angel he loved slept on. His eyes traced over the soft lines of Aziraphale, across the marks he’d left from his earlier labours, those efforts of reverence. All of it worshipped dark and achingly real across Aziraphale’s skin as if to say _I was here, and I loved him while I was._

_SOMEBODY HELP ME—_

It resonated throughout the entirety of Heaven, or perhaps just his own being as he swung his hammer to crash a supernova into another seraph, black and writhing from their damnation, and send them spiralling away from the Almighty’s throne. A flaming sword fell from their hand as they tumbled down cursing his name the entire way.

Aziraphale. That had been Aziraphale just now.

Ignoring the alarm in Her voice that commanded him to return to Her side he abandoned the throne room and tore his way through the bloodbath Heaven had become. Desperately he dodged enemy and ally alike in a flurry of force, unsure which was which at this point.

His guilt was obvious everywhere he looked, embedded into the chests of angels he never bothered to learn the names of, and ones he wished he had. The quality of the blades provided to Lucifer’s army would be traced back to him without difficulty.

At this point he was beyond fucked and he deserved it. Judgment needed to wait a little longer, though.

“Aziraphale!” He roared through the chaos, the voice of a seraph enough to scatter most around him that did not carry his rank, but only silence responded. As he called again his wheel of eyes spun wild, each one darting across the millions fighting around him.

Then he saw it.

Crackling and molten, a massive puncture wound in the foundation of Heaven as countless Fallen and angels were pushed through it.

Or dragged.

Curving his wings around himself he cleaved through the air, eradicating any who entered his path as he dove through the breach. Immediately he felt the strain on his connection to Her, like tearing the feathers from his wings as the terrible expanse beneath Heaven screamed out nothing but agony and hopelessness.

A tangled knot of Fallen far down below held the angel, angry and writhing as they plummeted to the wasteland below determined to take another with them.

Aziraphale. If he touches the wasteland he'll be lost.

Scattering into the burning air as he raced to catch up was the glimmer of thousands of white feathers as though pinpricks of light. Seraphic might tore viciously through the Fallen, like hammering away the layers to a star until all that remained was a glimmering centre.

“Aziraphale,” he rasped, close to tears from relief. It was short lived as he watched the boiling sulphur come towards him at a rate he could not pull back from.

Terrified, he curled tight around Aziraphale and righted himself, bracing for impact.

It hurt about as much as he expected.

“I’m here. I’ve got you,” he choked out to the principality held close against his chest even as its furnace bellowed with pain. All six of his massive wings beat powerfully to pull him from the sulphuric pits that tried to keep him and with a great effort he took off into the sky once more. Heaven’s light shone above, the wheel of his eyes spun rapid and asynchronous as he focused to see the puncture wound closing.

Faster, he commanded his wings. Aziraphale cannot stay here.

He knows however that he must remain. It was the choice She presented when Her call rang out for him, and he.

And he chose Aziraphale.

Countless fall in flames around him. Very soon he will be one of them, damnation already eating at the Grace flowing through his veins. His legs have at last burned away given how much lighter he became and the supernova furnace of his chest blazed white-hot in response, propelling him forward.

Praying whatever was on the other side deserved Aziraphale he reached up into Heaven, and with his last shred of control he set the principality down using all the gentleness a seraph capable of.

For Aziraphale, he’d mustered it all.

Heaven closed around his arms and somehow it hurt more than losing his legs as he howled out his misery to the silent walls of his former home. Those now severed hands which forged a universe of stars, cradled the angel he loved for that one brief, shining moment, gone. Grace left him forlornly, like saying goodbye as Her light flickered and faded from his spirit like She’d never been there. Never knew him. There was no time to grieve any of it as the dying furnace of his chest at last collapsed in on itself and an impossibly cold density replaced it, tearing him from Heaven. As he Fell, another burning figure among the countless, he wondered what the hellfire that awaited him could be used to make.

Unfortunately, he hit the ground before coming up with anything worthwhile.

Despite all his handiwork around the house and in his reborn smithy, a year into their new life was as far as Crowley got them before everything fell apart.

The ring weighed heavy in the back of his mind while he sprawled across the settee as he followed Aziraphale’s bustle about the sitting room. Its dimensions and form eluded his imagination’s most vivid corners, left unforged no matter the quality of the metal he found or the intensity of hellfire he bellowed the smithy with. Made no difference how many times he swung a hammer, failure rang back each time until Aziraphale would demand he come to bed as he’d woken up the neighbours yet again.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem a good night for stargazing,” Aziraphale said with a touch of wistfulness as he peeked through the curtains into the night. “Too much light pollution even out here, perhaps a trip somewhere up north would help?”

“Skip the airport, angel. We’ll take a vacation right to Alpha Centauri itself,” Crowley muttered before he sipped his wine. “Front row seats for any stargazing you want.”

Aziraphale laughed as he went to retrieve their next bottle of wine, clearly in a carefree mood tonight. Their move out of London has done the angel good Crowley noted as his eye followed Aziraphale’s bouncing step, if how his smile came far more easily nowadays, the way he hummed in the morning over tea. He liked, at least in the privacy of his own mind, to think some of it was due to him.

Crowley turned the vague image of a ring over in his mind hoping to use Aziraphale’s smile as inspiration this time as Aziraphale refilled their wine glasses before resettling atop his overstuffed chair. In response Crowley kicked his feet up on the coffee table solely to hear Aziraphale huff. Evening’s arrival allowed for the glow of a nearby lamp to capture Aziraphale in soft light, rendering him the centre of Crowley’s entire world. A flush bloomed across Aziraphale’s face under the deliberately open scrutiny. When Aziraphale dipped his chin down, the movement cast his usually pale hair a rich, warm yellow.

Gold, Crowley decided.

“Stars always seemed terribly lonely up there.” Aziraphale’s surprisingly shy voice fed into Crowley’s focus as he swirled the full wineglass before taking a delicate sip. “Must they have been placed so far from another?”

“The sheer physics alone on why that can’t work would take a millennium to explain, angel.” Crowley laughed, sharp and clear, and set his own wineglass down on the coffee table.

“You’ve thought that since I was making neutron stars, though. I remember saying—”

Aziraphale went stark white as his wineglass slipped from his fingers to shatter across the floor.

Wait.

_Fuck._

“Go on,” Aziraphale said as though no air filled his lungs, no glass lay at his feet nor wine stained his house slippers blood red. “What is, what do you remember saying?”

Crowley looked from Aziraphale to the floor, its million pieces of glass sparkling up at him like—

“Never mind angel, I’m drunk. Let me just go.” He stood up, swaying on his feet and if he could only get to the door fast enough. Before he even touched the handle a painful cry yanked itself from Aziraphale and he halted.

Except. They live together now. If he leaves here, he leaves home. Leaves Aziraphale.

“What did you mean, Crowley.” Aziraphale’s words barely reached his ears, deceptive in their calm. With great effort he turned to see the angel on his feet, hands clasped together in a white-knuckled grip, blue eyes wide as they never left Crowley’s.

“I—” Crowley’s throat closed, something about that question threatened the stability of his entire being. “I can’t tell you.”

“Crowley, my dear I am sure it is all right. Please just say it.” Aziraphale begged as he took a step forward, not yet desperate but Crowley knew he hung on by a thread.

It was there in front of him, temptation personified to let the angel know everything they once had. To not be the lone torchbearer of their memory, but Aziraphale could not fathom any of it. The long wait that if Crowley turned back to count the years he’d be lost forever. They both would be.

“Angel please, you need to stop.”

“Dear—”

“No, Aziraphale!”

A painful silence filled the room as Aziraphale flinched, neither able to speak for a moment. Aziraphale seemed to collect himself on a shaky breath as Crowley’s eyes remained fixated on the ruined floor between them, horror-struck.

“I deserved that, I suppose,” Aziraphale murmured, and this time it was Crowley who flinched. “Have you always wanted to do that, after all those times I never told you the truth?”

“Don’t, angel. Don’t accuse me of something like that.” Crowley said as he stalked forward into the sitting room's tense atmosphere, hands shoved into his pockets to not reach out for Aziraphale. “Your lot was made to forget for a reason.”

“My lot,” Aziraphale’s eyes flicked between his. “What happened to our side?”

Wound upon wound inflicted by Crowley’s own hand, what can he create nowadays but that.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley changed tactics with the grace of a wrecking ball. “Forget what I said, was a slip-up. Besides it’s nothing either of us should remember.”

“You remember though, don’t you.”

Dammit Aziraphale. “That’s different.”

“Did we fight?” Aziraphale pressed, another step forward as he looked up at Crowley. His eyes were red-rimmed. “I know I was a soldier but surely we—”

Crowley really needed to learn to rein his facial expressions in. The grimace plastered across it no doubt is what stopped Aziraphale mid-sentence.

“I wasn’t a soldier?” Aziraphale tried weakly. “But I thought...”

“There’s a lot,” Crowley began again. “They made you all forget.”

“They.”

Crowley glanced off to the side as he bit his tongue, avoiding Aziraphale’s questioning stare.

“The war cost everyone something,” he replied instead.

“I wouldn’t know, I suppose,” Aziraphale said distantly as he looked down. Crowley rubbed the back of his neck against the tension building there, unsure how to reach Aziraphale at this point.

“Aziraphale, look—”

“Were we,” Aziraphale inhaled slowly, as though the words pained him. “Together?”

Crowley hesitated long enough for Aziraphale’s valiant mask to crumble. Even as Aziraphale remained silent giving Crowley the chance to deny it absolution refused to come, instead lodging itself between his mouth and chest.

Somebody, _Anybody,_ get him out of this living hellscape.

“All these years,” Aziraphale shook his head as he backed away from Crowley until he fell into his chair, hands coming up to clutch at white-blond hair. “You could have walked away at any time and I’d never have known. I always feared you to be rushing me and you were, just towards something I can’t even remember!”

“I wasn’t rushing you towards anything!” Crowley snapped, advancing once more into Aziraphale’s orbit to cage him between his arms. “You _still_ think so low of me that I’d what - lord this over you in the hopes you might fall into my arms?”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened as he looked up into Crowley’s furious expression. “No, I—”

“You really want to know, Aziraphale? About the war, about how wonderful and great Heaven was back then. All the amazing things I’ve no doubt caused you to miss out on?”

“No!” Aziraphale shouted back with his own righteous anger. “I want to know everything I forgot about _you!_ ”

“There’s not a lot, angel.” Crowley stepped back to gesture helplessly between them, the chasm of years yawning wide. “It was an almost sort of thing, we never got the chance to... The whole rebellion deal got in the way and the rest is history.”

“How’d it get in the way? Why couldn’t we have—”

Fuck’s sake, for someone that hated asking questions Aziraphale sure was relentless.

“Not that simple, angel. You. I.” Why is the truth so _difficult?_ “There wasn’t much time for fleeing or anything. You’d gone through Heaven’s gate so I went after you and—”

“What did you say?”

He hadn’t meant to say that. He’d never meant to say that.

“Nothing. I didn’t—”

“You?” Aziraphale looked about to be sick, breaths coming faster and shorter as his eyes darted listlessly across Crowley, slotting every painful piece together. So clever, his angel has always been so terribly clever.

“You Fell for me, didn’t you.”

Unable to lie even about this, Crowley nodded.

“I...” He dodged the search of those eyes as Aziraphale grasped for words. “Why would you keep something like that from me?”

Fuck fuck _fuck._

“Aziraphale, please. Let’s just—”

“Why did you not say something ages ago?” Aziraphale gasped out into the silence Crowley refused to fill, wet streaks cutting rivers down his soft face. A sudden revelation seemed to strike, and he trembled as if an unstoppable tide raged through him. “Was I that disappointing, when you saw me on the wall?”

Crowley flinched. “What?”

“Is that why you never told me, because,” Aziraphale’s chest heaved as he was swept away by his own terrible fears. Tears flowed faster now, dripped down his face onto his waistcoat, over white-knuckled hands. He stood there, paralysed. For all Crowley’s deep-seated, irrational worry that Aziraphale might somehow weaponise this, never did he think Aziraphale would turn it on himself. Blame some non-existent flaw in his own being for all that happened and failed to happen between them.

“You took one look at what you Fell for and—”

Tragedy unfolded as Aziraphale cried, worse than a star shattered into pieces before its first gleam of life, than Her Grace forever torn from his essence. He’d suffer those a thousand times over to not watch the angel he loved collapse in on himself, having spent his entire life on Earth doing his best to ensure this never happened.

Only now to be the very reason it did.

“Angel, angel, no, none of that,” Crowley begged as he sunk to his knees on the soaked, glass-scattered floor to gently take Aziraphale’s heartbroken face between shaking hands. “There’s nothing you could ever do to disappoint me,” he said and thumbed away the tears underneath Aziraphale’s pale cheeks only for more to follow. “Wanted you to have a life without that burden, that’s all.”

“I could have had a life with _you_ ,” Aziraphale mourned, voice thick with grief. His eyes shut as Crowley pulled him close against the all too insufficient warmth of his chest, unwilling to grieve any of it even now. Not a moment of his life next to Aziraphale spared for what could have been, anything that should have been.

“You had one, Aziraphale. I’ve never not been here.”

Aziraphale shook his head, wet trails drenched deep into the dark fabric over Crowley’s hammering heart.

“It’s not enough. Oh, Crowley it cannot be enough for you after so long,” he choked out as another tremor wracked through him.

“It is, angel.” Crowley insisted through a million light-year nosedive and everything he’d lost, six thousand years and everything he’d found.

_Aziraphale, I crafted the sun itself with you in mind._

“I promise you’re enough.”

Aziraphale curled into Crowley’s chest and sobbed out a broken, agonised sound that sounded far too much like Crowley’s name. Heart in his throat, it was all Crowley could do to hold Aziraphale tight as he cried, and a long time passed before either of them moved.

He slithered out of that sulphuric pit with charred, shattered wings twitching over the scales that made up his new form. The decaying stumps where his limbs once were fell away the farther he dragged himself across the wasteland.

_Aziraphale._

Faint but still there, nestled as a glimmer of light somewhere within the dense blackhole locked within his chest that weighed him down to the ground. Aziraphale was safe, and he convinced himself through the endless grief and misery that was all that mattered. Rage stripped him to the marrow then regenerated as he howled his way through the entire demonic race writhing along with him, all of them deserving of this new world.

It was far too long in the future, after love and empathy were replaced with dark, vicious emotions he tried in vain to bury, that a voice pierced his spirit to mirror Her words from so long ago.

“Go up there and make some trouble.”

So, he went. His imagination has made many things in its time, after all. He might be Fallen, but he remembered.

Someone had to.

“What was I like back then?”

Crowley ran his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair before pressing a kiss to white-blond curls that tickled his nose. By some miracle known as functional arms he’d managed to move them from the unforgiving wooden floor to their bedroom. Several blankets kept them from the bitter cold outside, but Aziraphale still shivered in his embrace as he asked the question.

“Aziraphale,” he warned in a rarely used firm tone even as tenderness lived behind it. As much as it pained him, Crowley would say no more. Angels were meant to forget for a reason beyond his understanding, and he’d never risk Aziraphale for a life left behind.

“No, I.” Aziraphale glanced off, red-rimmed eyes distant as another shiver ran through him. “I know better than to ask for specifics, or, for anything really but...”

“You’re pretty much the same,” Crowley replied, unwilling to leave Aziraphale with nothing. Aziraphale’s brow furrowed until Crowley leaned down to smooth it away on a feather-touch kiss.

“Honestly,” Crowley continued as he ran his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair, aware of how intently he was being scrutinised. “I don’t look at it like that. Comparing what you and I were and now are. Neither should you.”

Not what Aziraphale wanted to hear if how silence settled atop them. In the flit of Aziraphale’s eyes between Crowley’s bled golden ones he saw that ever-present doubt, ready as always to fortify in the chambers of Aziraphale’s heart.

“Do you ever regret it?” Aziraphale breathed, as though terrified to speak such a possibility into the air between them, but it was Crowley who shuddered.

Crowley tried not to remember his existence before Aziraphale put a white wing over his head some six thousand odd years prior. Not the stars he’d worked on, not even that precious moment when a wayward principality first glimmered in the centre of a reclusive seraph’s smithy so very long ago. Whatever he lost by Falling has since been swept away in a cosmic storm he might as well have conjured from his own wings.

Instead of any of that, he gathered Aziraphale in his arms to say something nearly the same.

“Never, angel.” He closed his eyes at the relieved sob Aziraphale made into the crook of his neck and cradled him closer.

“There’s nothing to regret with you in my life.”

To claim he was sorry for having lost the sword would be a lie and angels do not lie so he does not need to apologise for his behaviour.

It made sense, he told himself rather unconvincingly.

Still, Aziraphale watched as the Children walked into the burning desert without so much as a glance backwards to the Paradise they betrayed. That sword, a flickering beacon in Adam’s grip, warned predators and prey alike of their coming, although what kind awaited not even Aziraphale knew. Venturing off into a great unknown hand in hand the First Children went, as if they cared not where they are headed so long as they were together. Unlike them after their fall from Grace he remained safe and content.

So why is it that standing here, on the wall of Eden, Aziraphale never felt more lost?

“Well, that went down like a lead balloon.” At last the demon next to him spoke, and he could not resist looking now that he had an excuse to. Handsome, if a word could ever do justice, with hair brighter than a discarded flaming sword.

Serpentine eyes the colour of—

Aziraphale swallowed against the unknown grip around his throat. Those eyes, as if they held the very sun itself within them stared down at Aziraphale, nearly burned straight through him all the same.

“Sorry,” he stuttered, unsure of what he might apologise for to a demon of all creatures. Compelled, nonetheless.

_I seem to have forgotten something important._

“What was that?”

“I’m thinking of taking that trip to Alpha Centauri.”

Aziraphale slowly stirred awake in his arms, a question in the soft noise he made. It was late into the night now, where the only sound to fill the quiet rest in their intermingled breathing. Moonlight pooled across the bed to reveal how time moved on without care, stretching along the soft lines of Aziraphale as he shifted underneath the sheets closer towards Crowley. Naked and vulnerable, but safe in a way Crowley pledged to keep him forever.

“Quick one,” he hurried to add, smoothing the ruffle of Aziraphale’s feathers in the other dimension as the angel tensed when his words caught up. “See the light show. Watch some solar flares arc between one another. Come back in time for dinner.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale worried his lip between his teeth, plump hands curled close to a chest where Crowley no more than a few hours ago had whispered his love to the fluttering heart contained within. Unable to resist, breathlessly grateful that he did not have to anymore, Crowley reached out and caught his thumb on Aziraphale’s red-bitten lip, then chased it with his own mouth. Cradling Aziraphale in these arms, paler and no longer dappled by light-year distanced stars they were, but solid and capable in the way no seraphic form ever could be.

How had he lived so long without this? It bore nothing to wonder, so he did not bother.

“Yeah, angel?”

Aziraphale glanced off to the side as he struggled to gather himself, then up to Crowley, flicking between his eyes for a long, thoughtful moment. Under the angel’s scrutiny his heart pounded, density twisted where molten heat once illuminated, but Aziraphale lay there and looked at him as though he were still worth beholding.

“Surely you, you might be lonely all the way out there?”

A promise to practice touch, eternities in the making, coalesced in the narrow focus of his fingertips across Aziraphale’s soft cheek. Upon ending his journey near the delicate shell of Aziraphale’s ear the most peculiar idea struck, and he gave a quiet snap.

Between his fingers lay a gleaming band the colour of sunlight, its simplistic perfection unlike anything he’s forged before, ever would again.

“Crowley?”

In another life he named space-cleaving comets after Archangels, asteroid belts encircling far-flung planets after seraphim, nebulae blooming in infinite patterns after songs he once sang before Her throne. Precious, awe-striking creations each with names and namesakes willingly forgotten in their own time.

All, except one.

Crowley held the ring up to Aziraphale.

“Not if we go together.”

_“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” - 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


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